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nanabrainrot · 1 year

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To Bear a Cross

Summary: Lalo wants a sacrificial lamb and gets it.

Warnings! THIS WORK IS NSFW. Forced marriage, dubious consent, internalized purity culture, misogynistic ideals, unhealthy relationship dynamics, insinuated stockholm syndrome

Word Count: 3913

Eduardo “Lalo” Salamanca/F!Reader

Prologue to Homemaker, Companion Piece to Companion Dog

AO3 6 Chapter Version: To Bear a Cross

The influx of money made more sense when you saw him.

Money had always been sparse, a luxury not afforded to people who followed the law and worked hard. It was a given that the true and honest were rich in morals and not in money as the Salamancas were. His eyes were dark and cold like the early hours of the morning, hard to look into without fear. He was unpredictable, but just a boy. Your father once said that the difference between a man and a boy happened when he stepped up; age didn’t matter but maturity did. Morale did. Empathy did.

He was young then and as were you. You think he was 18 and so were you that day.

“I thought you wanted to send her to college, old man?” Ah, it makes sense now.

“ I do! More than anything.” A choked sob, a guttural moan more akin to a wailing baby than the grown man you look at: your father. Endless hours in the fields, skin tinted permanent bronze and littered with sunspots and freckles alike. Rays beaming on him like a tattoo needle etched wrinkles into his forehead that were not originally there in your youth. 18 is young, but old enough to walk away, not like a 17-year-old and not like the girl you were at 5 asking why you could not get an education. As time sways, you have come to realize something: womanhood would not allow you the fruits of manhood, not in this lifetime.

“Then take our gift! My tio is being generous. You get more exports to more towns, stores, people! And more money, money for your girl to go to college,” the boy breathed excitedly, dark eyes blown wide with excitement and persuasion. His childish demeanor indicated a sense of unpredictability that left your belly churning uncomfortably. His face falls as your father’s wet eyes are set on the floor, decrepit and creaky, and not the boy. From the corner you peek around, just out of his peripheral, his face indicated he was taking your father’s hesitance as disrespect, his reluctance as a spit in the face. He wanted out with one foot in the quicksand and the rest of him wrapped in vines. “If you want her to go anywhere in life but this shitty little farm, you will say yes old man,” he hissed, losing his patience, “or do you want your girl selling pussy the rest of her life? Marrying some old fart to have a cozy bed.” Another choked sob that only results in the boy sighing and pursing his lips.

“You must love your girl, huh? You know, old man, my papa loved me so much he made me the man I am today. Masculine, macho, I make enough money in this month than you’ve seen in your lifetime. Does that make you sick? Working endlessly to never see your girl go to school? Old man…” the boy draws closer, “don’t let the stick up your ass stand in her way.”

“I want out.”

“You can have out but think of her.”

“I want…” A hard breath. “I want her to be safe. And happy. This… this cartel shit. It isn’t safe. If something wrong happens, it isn’t about me. It’s about her.” The boy’s brows knit together, annoyed at the insinuation that he was anything other than respectful in his persuasion to allow the man to walk away from the growing cartel. “If something wrong happens what do you think will happen to her?”

“You kill me. You break her kneecaps. You… you…” his eyes finally left the floor to look at the boy with a cold stare, dead eyes. A man with no choice and only fear.

“I what?” he dared the man to indicate what he thought he would say.

“You violate her.”

A scoff. The boy rolled his eyes, body lulling casually to lean on one foot a little more. “Who me? I’m a good guy. A great guy, even. My pals are less nice.” It sounds like a threat, one that makes your breath hitch in your throat. You had never truly been intensely religious, but, before their passing, all the women in your family emphasized keeping yourself pure, for better words. Your time was sparsely spent with men that weren’t your father, him typically asking you stay in your room studying while the Salamanca cartel men came around to stock his trucks full of produce with cash to transport or bricks of white.

“Listen old man. It’s a yes or no question: do you want your daughter to live a poor life forever or get her education? If you keep up your end of the bargain with no questions, your daughter lives a clean life that happened to be funded with,” his fingers raise in quotation marks, “dirty money.”

Your father presses his back to the back of the sofa, sighing. One tear falls, a last one for the road. “I want her to live a clean life. I want to keep her in the dark. Just…” he pauses, “if I screw up. Take it out on me. Not on her. Make it an accident. Something. Anything. Just don’t get her involved.”

The boy grins, clapping his hands together and grinning, “Perfect! My boys will come by tomorrow night to stock up your truck. Once it gets to my cousins, you’re in the game.”

The boy turns, his young face cold but warm with glee. “Wait.”

The boy pauses. “Hm?”

“What’s your name?”

His face doesn’t bother to turn back to him, casual and uncaring as boys are, as he reaches for the door knob and opens it. He says, “Eduardo. But you can call me Lalo.”

It doesn’t come as a surprise when your father was weeping when you walked in the living room, a pleading voice to soothe the men with a gun in their hand, and it wasn’t a surprise when he wept at the wedding.

Lalo, that boy, has his eyes glued to you, a dog watching food hung over its mouth, starving, when you walk in the room. Meek, timid, a voice not over the appropriate number of decibels to not be an indoor voice. The uncertainty is tantalizing; it meant you were scared. The one who saves your life is named Lalo, the hothead next to him is furious with you and makes a fast movement to point the gun at you but a tan hand presses it down. The other man glances over, unsure what to make of his higher-ups movement but upon looking back and forth between you and Lalo it comes together.

You had no chance at that moment. There was no other option.

Your daughter will never worry about a dime again. At first it sounded fantastical, but whatever is too good to be true typically is. Your father was groveling, begging and crying in a way that strained your heart so much it ached to even beat. He met you then came toward you, grinning, smiling a beautiful smile unlike anything you had ever seen. At least you had an attraction, something you were grateful for later on.

“You’re his daughter!” he says in a whisper, in your ear. So close his breath fans your ear and your nose picks up a cigarette scent and some Modelo.

“I am.”

“I’ve never seen you before. I’ve been dealing with him for months, but have never seen you. Why is that?”

“I stay in my room.”

“Hm,” he chuckles, “like a princess in a tower?”

“Not like that…” you avert your gaze, suddenly feeling the crushing pressure of his piercing eyes. He was charming, charismatics, something that is never good.

“You look like one.”

“A what?”

“A princess.” The air is so heavy it may as well have been a boulder on your back.

A beat. “Oh.” He throws his head back, so jolly, to laugh at your flustered nature. The man behind him coughs, blinking at Lalo with a stern look. “Lalo, don’t forget what Bolsa told us to do about the man and the girl. He’s too much of a risk. Too soft. The girl too. Bolsa isn’t sure if they’ll talk or not-“

“They won’t, ol’ boy.”

“And how do you know that Lalo? Bolsa gave us an order out of insecurity in their loyalty to us and –“

“I know because my girlfriend would never rat on me.”

Ah, the first impression is so important.

Your father did not walk you down the aisle some days later. A ring appeared on your dresser the next day, worth more than you wanted to know, and your bedroom door was always unlocked in the morning, something you never did. Ever since getting involved with the cartel, your bedroom door was always locked. In the mornings, it was slightly ajar and there were items in disarray. Not as though ransacking, but the opposite: your room kept being altered with fine items. Vases of flowers appeared, a beautiful rug, a new cozy chair replaced your rickety homemade stool, and perfumes kept appearing. You didn’t originally sleep this well before but Lalo had been coming nightly for dinners. He had already made an awful impression on your father but demanded his company. He would sit there silent and resigned as Lalo brought in meat to cook and loom at the gas stove, the heat fanning his face until he had cooked the meal. He kept returning, his demanding presence like a black cloud over the house. His commitment feels joking until he took you to the courthouse. It was spring fading into summer but it was hot, it was June 8th and the overcast was beautiful.

“I do.”

A cloud crosses the sky, prancing like a ballerina against a backdrop of sunsetting hues of purple, orange, red and the moon hanging over it. It’s a beautiful to Lalo but not as beautiful as you.

“I do.”

A cloud crosses the sky like a body dragging itself to safety, slowly and tortured. It almost breathed like it had been kicked. The sky was an array of the colors of a bruise, purple and red and orange but no veins of green split the sky. The moon was pale, big, and unchanging. A big white eye looks down at you; a full moon. The cloud is like a finger, pointing and laughing, long and wiry with gaps that are a color of purple you’ll hate forever after today. That sweet plum color used to be the color of your favorite dress; you wonder what to do with it now.

His moustache is ticklish and his face is scary, the swooping black hair skimming your forehead when he dips to kiss your lips passionately. Everything about him demands your attention and devotion. The word “no” was no longer a part of your vocabulary, something you realized only the night before your wedding, the day prior in the wooded cabin coated in darkness and nothing but Lalo. The trees were Lalo, the moon was Lalo, the floor creaks were Lalo, the sofa, the bed, rug, the coffee mugs, and every atom in the house was Lalo.

Lalo has not given you any reason to be scared, his threats are more focused on others rather than you. Your face not typically writ in concern but usually in confusion. It is surreal. It is a dreamscape. “It’s a pre-honeymoon!” he cackles, opening the door to a gorgeous villa in the middle of absolutely nowhere. The air is hot, humid, and a thick. The forest is dark. The birds are cawing. You are crying.

“Why are you crying, princess?” he coos sweetly, as if talking to a child. Maybe even an infant. You sniffle, the sinking feeling of reality creeping into you in goosebumps as you sit alone with a man from the cartel who has had a gun to your father’s head more than once. You had seen him in passing from your window when he would come and make sure every brick and every dime was accurate. His face was so warm, so smiley from the window; you wondered what he’d be like up close in some schoolgirl fantasy in the back of your head. It was so innocent to just wonder.

It was less innocent to let it transpire. To ask for it. To seek it out.

You wondered about men occasionally, pondered it in passing. You spent the vast majority of your youth studying in your room, your father desperate for you to at least score well on college entry exams if he was going to homeschool you since the city and towns neighboring were too far for you safely to get to and from. Your car was unreliable. “The cartel men,” he warned, “would do terrible things to you.”

But it isn’t so terrible. Being with a man. His hands are big, warm, thick, and stroke your thigh soothingly as if petting a cat. He is savoring the feeling of your tights, the fabric of the hosiery enchanting his senses.

“How can I soothe you?” A small sniffle.

“Just hold me,” you ask, reluctant but desperate to at least appease the man with you, “please?”

“Yeah,” he breathes a hot breath, pulling you in by the waist into his side. He put on his pajamas a bit ago, it is consisting of nothing but plaid pants, so your thin shirt was pressing into his hot skin. You want to pull away, in some respect. This is impure. No, no, it will lead to something impure. It is different; to keep going was to defy any bit of logic and slip into whatever foul impulse you let lead you on a leash into a sick man’s bed.

It isn’t a bed though, so does it count? This is a thought that crosses your mind as your back arches against the sofa.

“I need to check something.”

“Check what, Lalo?”

“Your hymen.”

It is impure and you aren’t sure what a hymen is until after he’s palming your sex. The hosiery ripped away at the groin to make way (you loved that houndstooth tights and wondered internally where you had purchased it to get another one) for his palm, rough and thick. “No man before me?”

“Nuh-uh.” It doesn’t sound like you. It sounds like a high-pitched whine, like you were having a fit for something. A craving, like an addict for a fix without ever having touched the stuff: a fuck. He chuckles, deep from his chest, into the nape of your slick neck thanks to his constant attention to it; a plummy hue beginning to bloom where he sucked the skin raw. “I’m your first, hah?” he huffs, bucking his hips into your leg through the fabric of his pants. His dark eyes flicker up momentarily, looking at your face that was twisted in a lewd expression: your eyes blown wide like you were surprised and watery with want as if you’d cry at any second, the front of your brows only a little tense, and mouth ajar but chin wet with your drool and his spit. This was impure.

Lalo has no intention to fuck you tonight, no. That is a special event for the wedding day, but today was a layout of taste testing of appetizers before a grand entrée. This was impure, debauched beyond words, the sight of your mussed hair against the arm of the sofa and your chest, slick with his spit from sucking and biting at your sensitive spots, rising and falling like you were done running a mile. Your sensitivity to his contact with beautiful, memorizing the moment in his brain to replay it until he died; this was his life now. Everything else he had ever done was white noise to you. Every bullet shot, gun loaded, piece of money in his hand, and every modelo meant jack shit to this.

He wanted to see one thing. You twitch at the contact, his mouth meeting your nipple, and yelping at the constant overstimulation to push and push and push you. You worried you were going to pee, a strange warmth in your core was making you hot with a want for something but you weren’t sure what. His fingers go deeper, the middle and index, and one thing: he curls it.

It’s like white. It’s like a dip in the pool on a hot summer. It’s like a warm hug in a time of need. It’s like Lalo isn’t a drug dealer, cartel boy who stole you away and altered you in just some days after meeting you. It’s something you can do forever. It’s your first orgasm, the want to ask him to skip the wedding and stay in bed after the hour or so of his attention only being you, with a side of you, and you as the dessert. “Ah!” a jolt, a twitch, and you’re batting his arm away but it only excites him further to go faster, sucking hard at your nipple as your eyes water more and mouth open more and, like a dam breaking, your eye lets one tear fall, your mouth a bit of drool, and your eyes white for a split second before your head goes back to arching on the sofa to not see Lalo but the ceiling or, more accurately, the back of your eye sockets from rolling back. Your back must have been a perfect U from the way you were arching it and Lalo thinks this sound might be better than hearing “I do” tomorrow.

The trees, the walls, the rug, the coffee mugs, are the only witnesses to a dam breaking and a mind with it as you tremble like a leaf and sob a high-pitched sob unlike you and so debauched you want to die with embarrassment after the fact. You see the ceiling, body still shaking, no senses registering other than the aftermath of touch. His face appears, looming over you, and you feel the hard skin pressing through his pants against your belly as he crawls up to meet your face where your head hangs over the arm. Lalo is so smug.

“The first of many, no? It’s an engagement gift for our pre-honeymoon.”

The ring feels so heavy. It burns your skin.

In light of recent events, you could have handled this better. The temperament of your husband was particularly poor with others but he often made better calls in judgement when women were involved. Men, he argued once, are more capable creatures than women; they are like animals.

He uses that argument when you are no longer allowed to see anyone but the chaperones who won’t look you in the face. Their cold eyes looking through and passed you, but never in the eyes. He had buried some men whose gaze lingered on you through methods you had thought been left in medieval times. His machismo thinking stemming from years, centuries, of diluted values based on women being a weaker and less capable sex. It is some years later when you think he’s right.

Across from him, a man named Ignacio stares at you, who sits on an adjacent counter in a beautiful villa. Your eyes do not find him, but look past him. As a wife, you duty is to honor your husband with respect. To live by him and for him. The classic thinking prevailed time for a reason, why would it live on if not right? You wondered if natural selection applied to certain thought processes. The books on the shelf behind Nacho attract your attention, but not moreso than your husband, whom you glance at often Nacho noted. Your dress is a tight, thin cotton nightgown that hugs your body. The pattern is some pointelle dotting with a little letter embroidered on the chest. Sliding from the counter, you touch Lalo’s shoulder, which he immediately replies to by reaching to stroke the flesh of your hand. “I’m wanna go read. Is that okay with you, Lalito?” you ask in a voice barely over a whisper. Nacho ponders how Lalo could even hear you with the softness of your words. “Of course, baby,” he reassures, patting your ass as you stride past Nacho wordlessly and beeline for the arrangements of paperbacks of thick and thin. The embroidered letter was E. Nacho does not look back her, refusing to acknowledge the movement unless asked to specifically. Lalo rarely mentioned his wife, the only indication being a tattooed ring on his ring finger and the way he occasionally looked at a photo of her in his wallet in the car when he was driving. The energy of possession was rippling off him in waves. Nacho hears the flipping of some pages and the settling of weight on the sofa behind him; did you ever leave Lalo’s gaze? He doubted it. Lalo looks past Nacho, staring at you, while talking to him, “But that’s business for next time. I was just being nice, my little lady doesn’t get many guests and I trust you enough to not be stupid with her.”

“Huh? Stupid how?”

“You didn’t look at her, Ignacio,” he smiles a smile that don’t reach his eyes, “good.” A small chuckle leaves him as he goes to stand. “Thanks for stopping by. Let me walk you out, my friend.”

The footfalls don’t attract her attention to Nacho, but she is fixed on Lalo. Her cold eyes accentuated with thick lashes from an expensive makeup store no doubt and her lips shifted anxiously in their shiny gloss coating as she watched Lalo walk to the entryway from the sofa. He feels like he walked into something, like an animal’s enclosure that only connected with one zookeeper. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Lalo?” Nacho asks, looking back through at him as he passes the threshold.

His blood runs cold, staring at the silhouette of you standing stiff at the end of the dark entryway some paces back. Just the outline of your figure backed by the ambient lighting that was overhead on the high ceiling and the peripheral of the open concept kitchen showing a face that still didn’t see him: only Lalo.

“Yeah, see you tomorrow, buddy,” he grins. The slam of a door, the wood, is heavy and harsh. The wind of Albuquerque is heavy and harsh, beating on his body as he opens his glossy car door and retreats into his car. A feeling of pity, hot and stomach-churning, warms his belly in a way he couldn’t explain. Your cold gaze fixed with tunnel vision on the monster in man’s skin and he has seen the markers of possession on you. A giant ring worth hundreds of thousands no doubt accented your thin finger and the embroidered E on your dress were the two thing that stood out to him but, in rightfully not looking any further at you he missed the tattoos, the acrylic nails that spelled “LALO” on the four fingers that were not your thumb, and the hickeys littering your neck.

The embroidery bothered him for a moment, as he got into bed. E. E. E. E. What was E again?

Oh.

E stands for Eduardo. You sleep in a plum nightgown, curled in his arms like a dog with her owner, and peace is all you know because all you know is Eduardo.

#nana writes bcs #eduardo salamanca x reader #eduardo salamanca x you #lalo x reader #lalo x you #lalo salamanca x reader #lalo salamanca x you #basically a prologue and context to companion dog and homemaker #homemaker is going to be my thirst series no one talk abt it

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